18. Want to know my ideal, dream tax structure?

It's surprisingly flat:

There's an absolute exemption up to the median national household income.

After that, there's a single flat tax levied on all income above that, at say 15% or so.

Beyond that, there's a surtax on income one sigma over the median income, at a rate indexed to the national poverty level. So, if the poverty level is 0, there is no additional tax. If the "job creators" can create an economy without poverty, I am fine with their keeping all their money.

31. Productivity can be influenced.....

....by technology....as we have seen. TEchnology is responsible for the loss of vast numbers of manufacturing jobs as well as service jobs. The advent of the computer age has only begun to eliminate jobs, IMO. As more and more jobs are lost to technology, I'm not sure how people are going to be able to earn money. Eventually, it seems, we will have to go to some sort of socialism because there simply will not be enough jobs to go around to feed the populace. Of course, the "I've got mine, you get yours" crowd don't give a flip about that, but it will impact them, too, eventually. The rich will continue to get richer and the poor poorer until there is revolt. At that point, all their money will be worthless because it will place a target on their backs.

I'm not jealous of rich people.....I am rather well off, myself. I retired at age 45 and have a coupla million dollars to last me the rest of my life. But, I was a blue collar guy most of my life, and all my friends are blue collar workers, struggling to make ends meet. So I know the need that exists. One doesn't have to be a genius to see where the current system is leading us. The question is, how long can the rich stave off revolt? We have seen the beginnings in the Occupy movement. It is a growing sentiment that will eventually snowball and lead to a complete collapse of the capitalistic economy we now enjoy. In a hundred years, everything will be different. I'm not sure what it will be like, but it will have to change to appease the masses.

14. Well, that would be an awesome world, but even if we started tomorrow it would solve...

17. Would that be overall, industry by industry, or workplace by workplace or job by job?

Productivity's soared overall, i.e., in the US as a whole.

Should all wages keep pace with this?

I ask, because not all industries have seen increases in productivity. So should just the industries that have seen productivity see pay increases?

The problem is that not all plants or worksites have seen the same increases. This would just drive old plants out of business and help move jobs overseas--or to places where it's cheaper to build new work sites.

So perhaps it should go worksite by worksite? So if the steel mill in Podunk, MI sees increases in efficiency but the one in NoWhere, Georgia, doesn't then the Podunkers see a hefty raise while the NoWherians see nothing.

That seems hardly fair. Moreover, it could be the case that the productivity gains at Podunk are entirely due to just the open hearth. Why spread the wealth when the open hearth workers are doing much more work? So perhaps the pay increases should go job by job at a given workplace.

The problem is that a lot of jobs have seen no increases in productivity. Or you have to figure out how to define productivity.

Take teachers. Colleges have seen just about 0 increase in productivity. My high school's seen an increase because class size has increased--fewer teachers teaching more students. But if class size goes down next year, should we get pay decreases?

Don't know. But I do know this: The metric for evaluating productivity will suddenly be revised to make sure that the revisers and measurers have triple-digit productivity increases each of the first 3 years its implemented.

22. And remove the cap. n/t

24. I'm all for that, but it's not necessary if wages kept rising

Again, this isn't about the best possible policy or what I would do if I were king. I'm simply making the actuarial notice that if wages were rising at the same rate as productivity, SS and Medicare would be fully funded for the next few centuries.